Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Revelation. Tonight is study #9 of Revelation, chapter 17, and we are going to be reading Revelation 17:11-12:
And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition. And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast.
I will stop reading there. We are continuing to discuss the vision that God gave the Apostle John of a “beast” with “seven heads and ten horns.” The beast is Satan and the seven heads were said to be seven mountains on which the woman sitteth and God said there were seven kings and they represented the seven kingdoms of Satan. There are only seven, even though God now mentions an eighth king in verse 11. Yet, the seven kingdoms of Satan represent Satan’s rule from the beginning of the fall of man. It is the kingdom of evil or darkness and that is when “evil” began, as mankind disobeyed God and became servants to sin and to Satan. They became the first citizens of that evil kingdom, but there are billions of unsaved people presently on earth that are citizens of the kingdom of this world, which was the kingdom of Satan until he was defeated on May 21, 2011.
The seven kings represent Satan’s periods of rule throughout history and the “seven” identifies with the final rule of Satan during the Great Tribulation. We discussed that last time. As God said “five are fallen,” it represents the 11,045 years of the Old Testament; “one is” represents Satan’s rule from the cross to the end of the church age; and the other that is “not yet come” represents the seventh and last kingdom. The last kingdom lasted for a “short space” or a “little season,” which was only 23 years in length, compared to the previous periods of rule which spanned thousands of years. We can see why God called it a “short space.” The “little season” of the Great Tribulation was only 23 years, lasting from May 21, 1988 to May 21, 2011. The judgment on the churches took place and Satan was granted rule, like never before, in the churches and in the earth. It was unprecedented. In order to stress the fact that this last kingdom of Satan that took place during the “little season” of the Great Tribulation would be like nothing ever seen before, He tells us it is the beast “that was” during the Old Testament era and “he is not,” after receiving a death blow at the cross. By the way, just to show this, it says in Revelation 13:3:
And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.
So the beast “is not” during the time of his binding when he is said to be in a bottomless pit. Of course, he did exist during those 1,955 years of the church age, but it is language God uses to identify with that time period. Again, it says in our verse in Revelation 17:11:
And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition.
So with this statement that “he is the eighth, and is of the seven,” it emphasizes that this is still referring to Satan. There is no new character on the scene and it is not a different fallen angel or demon that has risen up to usurp Satan’s authority. It is the same evil being that was from the beginning that was “of the seven,” but God is highlighting that “he is the eighth.” Why does God do this? It is in order to emphasize the number “eight.” The number “eight” can point to a new beginning, since we know that God has built into the timetable of history “weeks.” They represent every seven days and God set this up through the creation week. God worked for six days and rested the seventh day and then it can be said the “eighth” day represents a new week. Likewise, it says here that “the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven.” It is almost like he has been resurrected when he rises out of the bottomless pit at the beginning of the Great Tribulation. Once the world was unrestrained from sin to a large degree as God lifted His hand of restraint from the hearts of men, the world can exalt in its wickedness and delight in its evil pleasures like never before, so it was certainly a reign of Satan that was unprecedented during those 23 years of the Great Tribulation. There was great sin not only in the world but in the churches. Satan had infiltrated the churches and sown tares among the wheat and he had worked through his emissaries to distort and pervert the true Gospel, turning it into other kinds of gospels. He was successful to a large degree in many churches and he could even take over entire denominations, but he had never been able to take over all the churches until God turned the churches over to Him and the Holy Spirit left the churches. Satan entered in and took his seat as the man of sin and it was, in a sense, as though he had been “reborn.” It was a new beginning of his evil reign. He had reigned for thousands of years, but now something spectacular was happening. Had he finally overcome God? He overcame the outward representation of the kingdom of God, which was the churches, and that gave mankind “hope” because the unsaved hate the Word of God. They like the idea of being free to sin and to be able to sin all the more and develop their own morality, like we see today.
So this is the idea when God says that the beast “is the eighth, and is of the seven.” But this idea of the “eighth” is also in view in Daniel, chapter 7, where God reveals a vision of four beasts to Daniel. It says in Daniel 7:3:
And four great beasts came up from the sea, diverse one from another.
When we read of these four beasts, it says the first is like a lion, the second is like a bear and the third is like a leopard. When we read of the beast that comes up out of the sea in Revelation, chapter 13, it says in Revelation 13:2:
And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion…
The very same creatures are mentioned here as were mentioned in Daniel, chapter 7, so there is no question it is the same beast. It is Satan. It is the time of the end and it is pointing to the Great Tribulation.
Then it says in Daniel 7:7:
After this I saw in the night visions, and behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth: it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it: and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it; and it had ten horns.
This is the same idea when God says in our verse, “he is the eighth, and is of the seven.” God wants us to know that this final kingdom of Satan is diverse or different. It is still Satan, and that is why “he is of the seven,” but there is a dramatic change in God’s program as He allowed Satan to overcome and conquer the churches and to greatly increase his kingdom through mankind’s wickedness. Satan is elevated because the more men sin, the more they serve sin and Satan. Through all these things, God wants it known that this is a vastly different time in which Satan will be victorious over the corporate church. As God lifted His hand of restraint, mankind was being turned, more and more, over to Satan and men are given up by God to pursue their wickedness, such as in the case of homosexuality. Men have grown cold toward the Law of God on so many points, it is impossible to recount them all. But this is the idea of Satan’s final kingdom being “diverse” from the others and God uses the term “eighth” because it is a new beginning in a sense.
Also, here in Daniel 7:7, it said, “and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it; and it had ten horns,” and then it goes on to say in Daniel 7:8:
I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them another little horn…
So if there were ten horns and then a little horn came up, that would total eleven. Then it says in Daniel 7:8:
… before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots…
If you have eleven horns and three horns are plucked up or taken away, you now have eight horns. Then it says in Daniel 7:8:
…and, behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things.
In speaking of these horns, God is also focusing on the number “eight,” and it relates to the diverse nature of this final, great kingdom of Satan, the last period of his rule.
Going back to our verse, again, it says in Revelation 17:11:
And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition.
We discussed “perdition” back in verse 8 and I will read the first part of that verse again, in Revelation 17:8:
The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition…
In a single statement, God has laid out thousands of years of history and Satan’s fate. He is making a statement about Satan’s history, his present state at the time of the writing and what will happen in the future. When He says, “The beast that thou sawest was,” God is referring to the thousands of years of the Old Testament. Then God says he “is not,” referring to the time he was bound at the cross. Then he will “ascend out of the bottomless pit” and he will have his great rule during the Great Tribulation. Following that, he will “go into perdition,” because following the Great Tribulation is Judgment Day. On Judgment Day Satan was defeated and he was cast into the lake of fire and “goes into perdition” or destruction. God allows Satan to exist. I do not think we can say “to live” because to know God is “life.” Satan has had conscious existence over the many thousands of years of earth’s history and, yet, that is no great thing. Even if someone could exist for the entire duration of this world, it would still be a temporal existence because there is an end. When there is an end to something, it turns that something into vanity, so the entire rule of Satan and all that he aspired to achieve through his deceit of Adam and Eve and all he attained by taking his seat in the temple to show himself that he is God is gone forever – it is like a “puff of smoke.” It is gone for evermore and it is never to be considered, remembered or brought to mind by the people of God for all eternity. Satan is destroyed. He goes into perdition. He is part of the world and creation that God will destroy on the last day and there will not be a single thought given to this evil creature ever again. It just goes to show the ultimate vanity and emptiness of the entire thing, insofar as Satan is concerned and insofar as unsaved mankind is concerned. They desired the things of this world and they sought to obtain them, but it is all gone when they have died and the world is removed from them. When they are destroyed, they also go into perdition and they are burned up in the lake of fire and cease to exist for evermore.
Annihilation is the theological term for God’s final judgment of Satan and of unsaved mankind. The Law of God will be satisfied at that point. It is the demand of God’s Law for all that have sinned against him, including unsaved mankind and the fallen angels. Death is the cessation of existence and to “be no more,” as the Bible says in several places.
Then it goes on to say in Revelation 17:12:
And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast.
In Daniel, chapter 7, we saw that there were “ten horns.” We also saw it in Revelation, chapter 13. Let us go back there again and read Revelation 13:1:
And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.
When the horns are crowned, it indicates that they are ruling as kings. It is during the Great Tribulation that they are crowned and that is what God is also telling us in our verse in Revelation 17:12: “And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet.” Again, these ten horns all represent Satan. They are not ten little evil rulers. The number “ten” identifies with completeness and it points to completeness in two ways, I believe, in regard to Satan’s final rule:
Then, finally, we come to the “little season,” which in our verse in Revelation 17:12 is referred to as “one hour,” and then Satan will have his rule expanded and “complete” in that sense, but it will also be “complete” because this period of time will end his reign. This is the final time in which Satan will rule, so it will “complete” his overall rule. The last day of the Great Tribulation and the beginning of Judgment Day on May 21, 2011 is the completion of the rule of Satan over this world. At that point, the Lord Jesus Christ took the kingdom and He began to rule with a “rod of iron.” Christ is not ruling with favor toward His unsaved subjects, but He is ruling with wrath over the unsaved people of the world. He is ruling the people of the earth to punish them, but, nonetheless, it has been the rule of the Lord Jesus Christ since that point.